


Should Know Better

by CheyanneChika



Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feels, Fic Exchange, Insecure Alec, Light Angst, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), Post-City of Heavenly Fire (more or less), Sweet Magnus, exchange at Fic Corner 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-19 12:31:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4746581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheyanneChika/pseuds/CheyanneChika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jace gets Alec to go out and abandons him, then he gets hit on and Magnus shows up.  Bring on the angsty feels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Should Know Better

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Starrie_Wolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starrie_Wolf/gifts).



> Part of the fic exchange using Starrie_Wolf's prompts, specifically: 
> 
>  
> 
> Request 4  
> Fandom: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare  
> Characters: [ANY] Alec Lightwood, Magnus Bane
> 
> I'm going to request Magnus/Alec for this, because it's a canon pairing, but I suppose you could write genfic if you wanted to explore Alec's or Magnus' childhood.
> 
> Prompts: (I chose two of them)  
> [Angst, no happy ending required] Being gay is not a weakness. It takes time for this to sink in.  
> Future-fic! Post-CoHF, where do their paths take them?
> 
> Urgh, I was going for light angst, but it went overboard there at the end.

“Why do parents suck?”

Alec’s head snapped up and he cursed himself for letting Jace get the drop on him…again.  “What?”

“Parents.  They suck.”  Jace plunked down next to him poked him in shoulder. 

“I―they do not,” Alex retorted.

“Young Alexander,” Jace’s voice took on a ridiculously pompous tone, “you are sitting on the floor in the armory and there’s a fist-shaped dent in the wall outside your mother’s room.”

Alec’s eyes closed slowly.  Then they snapped open again.  “There is not a dent in the wall, it’s stone.”

Jace rolled his eyes.  “A metaphorical dent.”  He prodded his parabatai again.  “Really, what’s the problem?”

Alec licked his upper lip and rested his chin on his fist.  “Parents suck,” he said on a sigh.  “They suck a lot.”

Jace stood suddenly and pulled Alec up with him.  “Come on.  We’re going out.”

“Going out where?” Alec asked.

“Pandemonium, of course,” Jace called over his shoulder.  He was already heading for the armory door. 

“I didn’t hear about any trouble,” Alec muttered, reaching for the nearest weapon to him, a large dagger.

“That’s because there isn’t any trouble.  We’re just going out.”

“You mean, for fun?”

Jace’s green eyes rolled skyward when he turned around and saw Alec’s hand hesitating on a crossbow.  “By the angel, it’s not like we’re going to a gay bar or a strip club or something.  Relax, leave the weapons and just have some fun.”

Alec bit back the nasty response, saying instead, “Like I’d even be noticed by anyone in a gay bar with you around.”

Jace laughed.  “Come along, young Alexander,” he said in his posh voice.  “Let us be off to indulge in the pleasantries of clubbing.”

…

Thirty minutes after arriving at the Pandemonium Club, Clary called, inviting Jace to spend the night in and watch a movie that he probably wouldn’t like and eat popcorn that was probably burnt.  He patted Alec on the back, tossed some money on the counter where they’d been sitting and vanished within thirty seconds, murmuring, “Just remember, parents suck.”

“Best friends can suck too,” Alec muttered at his drink as he tucked Jace’s money out of sight.

“Where’s your boyfriend off to in such a rush?” a voice asked.

Alec turned to see a man maybe a year older than him on his other side.  He had blond hair and eyes that shown but he couldn’t tell the color.  His shirt was bedazzled and white to catch the black lights. Alec raised his eyebrows.  “He’s not my boyfriend.  And he’s going to his girlfriend’s house.”

The man’s teeth flashed.  “Even better.  I’m TJ.”

“I do actually have a…a,” Alec trailed off, his face coloring.

“A boyfriend?” TJ finished.  He glanced around surreptitiously.  “Still can’t say it?”

“I can say it,” Alec snapped.  “I. Have. A…a boy-boyfriend.”

“There you go.”  TJ grinned.  “Now just say it a hundred more times and maybe in a single sentence.”

“Uhm.”

“Or, maybe, forget the boyfriend and let me buy you a decent drink.” 

Alec opened his mouth to respond with…something, but was interrupted.

“Or, maybe, you can back off.”

Alec’s back snapped straight and he jerked around to face Magnus, in all his glittering and tight-pantsed glory, looking as stiff as Alec had ever seen him.

TJ looked between them and shrugged.  “Fair enough.”  He touched Alec’s hand.  “I know when I’m not wanted.  Just trying to bolster the poor kid.”  He sauntered away with a casual look up and down the warlock.  Alec turned away.

“Did you develop psychic abilities, since I saw you last?” he asked the counter.  Magnus took TJ’s vacated seat and didn’t say anything.

“I was going to say no,” he continued lamely.

“Alec, you have to realize that if I’m attractive and have a long history of lovers, you are also attractive and have the potential to create a long history of lovers.  Do you think I would want you any less if I’d met you after you’d been with five, ten, a hundred other men?”  He reached over and sipped from Alec’s drink.  “You are gorgeous, Alec.  The only reason you never saw it is because Jace is, well, he’s just ridiculous.  And Isabel isn’t exactly ugly either.”  Magnus chuckled.  “The point I’m trying to make here is that you are lovely and innocent but that isn’t all you are.  Just as I am not only old and less than innocent.  Being who you are is why I love you, not what you have or haven’t done.”

Alec didn’t know what to say to that.  He just stared at his hands for a long moment, then raised them to meet Magnus’s cat-like ones.  “The person I am can hardly accept what I do with you.  I can fight it all I want but it’s true.  Being…gay, having a―” he stopped, swallowed and changed tact.  “I know I’m gay.  I’ve accepted that, but I―I don’t feel like I can expect anyone else to accept it.”

The warlock’s face, which had gone from slightly desperate to blank when Alec started talking, went white.  “Alec,” he whispered.  Then he stood and pulled Alec out of his chair and into a tight, comforting hug.  “Alec,” he said again.  “You can’t keep thinking this way.  If I’d known―” Magnus paused and looked down to see his lover shaking ever so slightly in his arms.  “You don’t have to―” he was actually struggling for words, him, Magnus Bane.  “If someone doesn’t accept you, then to hell with them.  You shouldn’t dwell on it like this.  More importantly, you should be happy you know what you want.  I spent nine hundred years not knowing what I wanted.  Then I met you and I want you with a ferocity that boggles me sometimes.”

Alec took a deep breath, inhaling Magnus’s scent and the warmth that gathered around their shared heat.  He knew Magnus was right, but it was going to take more time for it to really sink in.  “Take me back to your place?” he asked, carefully.

Magnus gazed into his blue eyes, then nodded.  He released Alec from the embrace, keeping one of his hands clasped in both of his, and pulled him away from the bar.  “Let’s go home.”

Home, Alec considered.  He could call that apartment home someday.

Maybe.

Hopefully.

The End

 


End file.
